


Wish on Me

by Summer_Storm



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, I'll add more tags along the way, M/M, Sort Of, Summer, like not really but maybe if you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 13:25:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17325839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summer_Storm/pseuds/Summer_Storm
Summary: Levi goes on a one-off holiday with his despised uncle Kenny and his trophy girlfriend, Angela. Levi never knew that stars could shine quite so brightly out at sea, and as much as he hates his uncle he's glad he came, to get away from the city if anything. Levi allows himself to relax and let his guard down, gets close to a stranger, explores another world that he's never seen before under the pearlescent light of a waning moon. He let's the brightest star of all guide him through his ups and downs, and doesn't expect to miss it all when he inevitably has to leave.Nothing ever goes as expected after all, especially not when you leave it to fate and the will of the skies and sea.





	1. When Sunny Gets Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this for a while and i've re-written every part about a hundred times and I'm still not really sure about it- that being said i probably wont be able to update very regularly and am really doing this for fun and sort of to improve my writing, but i do have quite a lot already written. idk how i want this to feel lol but this introductory bit is kind of poetic??? and there's a lot of staring from afar in this chapter before they begin interacting so sorry lmao. please please please give me some constructive feedback and point out any mistakes, this is unbeta'd. woo okay pls enjoy.
> 
> chapter title from song 'when sunny gets blue' because i have no creativity lol (listen to Mel Torme perform it it's perfection)

Sometimes, Eren can’t help but feel like he is trapped in love. Not with a person, no. Not a face or a heart  or body, or a character. But a place. More specifically, this place.

Eren loves it here, in this place. He belongs here, from the tips of his fingers and toes, every single strand of hair on his head down to the marrow in his bones and the blood in his veins. This is _his_ place.

Eren loves the people. He loves the ones who stay, the comforting, steady presence of the fishermen and boaters that set out before the sunlight can kiss the mountaintops and come back before it melts behind them beneath the horizon from which they return each day. Loves the women dressed brightly in flowing fabrics to stave off the heat of the day, pacing the cobbled streets with baskets brimming with food and craft cocked on their hips and children playing at their feet. Eren especially loves the children, running through the streets, dancing and shouting without a care all much to their mothers’ displeasure, sweetness smeared on their youthful faces as they laugh loudly. Eren loves that no matter who you are or where you come from, it is common knowledge that a child laughs out of pure happiness and happiness only. And for that, Eren thinks, there is something to be said about the laughter of children.

Of course, Eren also loves those who come and go, unfamiliar faces speaking in curious tongues, passing like phantoms, here one minute and gone the next.

Eren loves the sea. He loves the sea so much, her clear green-blue, and the ocean breeze, tangling its warm fingers through his hair and dishevelling his clothing, leaving him rejuvenated. Loves the feeling of being rocked to sleep by her gentle swells, loves her depths and her shallows, all she holds and all she brings and takes with her ever changing currents and eternal tides. Whatever she takes she will give back, and whatever she brings she will again retrieve, whether it takes an hour or a day or a week or a month or a year. Tens, or thousands, or millions. 

Eren loves the music, enchanting and old in the depths of its melody, the beat of the drums, the steady yet lilting backbone of the strikingly mellow tunes and crooning rich voices and singing violins that linger in his dreams as ghosts of his past, his heritage and his birth right.

Eren loves his family. From his sister and brother to the cat that sometimes sleeps outside his back door, and all of those in between. Truly, he loves it all.

Yet despite all of his love, there is nothing for him in this place. He is trapped, here, with the world moving much too fast and always just out of his reach, stuck in this place where things are still as they were a very long time ago. Eren feels like he’s trapped between the mountains that face the sea behind him, with no where to run, facing either endless waters or the impossible incline. He’s trapped in a place where time does not exist, and instead the people who come and go are the only evidence of a modern world outside of here. He holds onto those faces when he can, trying to gauge what the rest of the world must look like, bursting with insatiable curiosity, needing to know that there truly is more outside of this place that he’s only known his whole life. The only place that he knows that he can call home.

Until he can leave, though, he supposes that he shall just have to remain trapped in love.

 

***

 

 

It is summer, now. Eren’s favourite season, his favourite time of year. He can be in the sea, swim and play and soak in the sun and salt, falling into bed weary but warm, content at the end of the day. But, as Eren had learned early on, he must work. Eren is sixteen now, and he knows that as soon as he is eighteen his uncle will no longer support him through school or provide accommodation or food. So, Eren must work and save whatever he earns. It is not a problem, Eren thinks. It has been this way for a very long time, since he was at least eight years old, coiling ropes or mopping decks or polishing wooden hulls, pocketing whatever he earns and dreaming dearly of seeing the world. It is not a problem that whatever holidays from school he has he must spend working. The way he sees it, it is just a necessary part of life, and those who have not had to work for themselves yet are at a disadvantage, Eren is getting a head start. That is what his uncle Hannes had said years ago, anyway. Eren does not really mind.

So, all day and all night, Eren does what he is good at. His muscles ache and his palms are dry and rough, hardened from years of wear from rope and manual labour, bones leaden with exhaustion from a long day of work in the sun. He sits on a tall stool on the edge of one of the many piers reaching into the inky sea from the long stretch of harbour lining the town’s edge. A wide, wooden pier adorned with candlelit tables and starstruck lovers or sunburnt families, with his guitar in his lap and a dusty revived mic pressed to his lips, and he sings.

He sings about love. A love that he does not truly believe exists, and about two souls who travelled all of the expanses of the oceans just to find each other without even knowing it. About two people who were guided by stars and the unconscious pull of their hearts to come together. He sings about fate, and about a love that transcends stormy seas and electric skies, all of the rungs on the ladder of age and caste and all of the spaces in between, and even death. A love that never dies, no matter how many times the people who it possesses do.

Eren sings almost in a trance. He has been here for hours, and now he is feeling the stiffness of today's work in his back and an uncomfortable sting begins to prickle in his fingers through the numbness that had first situated itself there in the beginning of the evening as the sun had started to set. Now, the moon has been watching him from over head for hours. His mind and eyes are wondering. His gaze traipses over all of the people, sitting in nice clothing, candles lighting and obscuring their faces with flickering, warm orange tones and deep shadows. He closes his eyes for a second, fingers dancing on the fret board in a complicated riff of swift arpeggios and playful trills, and the concentration inside of his own mind distracts him from his exhaustion. The sound of his own voice curls around the chord that signifies the end of the guitar’s time in the limelight, arching up gently and then swooping down, soft and light but alive with texture. A place to put his thoughts when his head gets too noisy, a vessel in which he keeps all of his faith and sanity when he doesn’t want to face the world past the breath in his lungs and the song on his lips.

When Eren opens his eyes once more, his half lidded stare is met by another. Eren doesn’t think about the song he is in the middle of for a moment and continues by muscle memory alone, studies the pair of eyes that his own have found. They are an intriguing colour, he thinks as the fingers of his left hand flutter over an artful run. They appear to be grey, or a light, light blue. Much lighter than any he’s ever seen, ringed with black, but clear as the night sky in the middle. Eren observes more. The eyes are rather narrow, almost catlike- he thinks, like his sister’s, dipping in by the person’s nose and slimming elegantly at the side of their face under neat, dark eyebrows. Eren is drawn back to the centre of their face, slender, dainty nose, delicately sculpted, leading down to a fine cupid’s bow and shapely pink lips shining slightly in the low candlelight. Eren licks his own chapped lips subconsciously, and closes his eyes as he tilts his chin up to let his voice serenade the stars with the song his fingers strum out. He doesn’t think about much.

When Eren opens his eyes for the second time, he looks at the person’s face in its entirety, all their features carefully convened in such a precise way that Eren forgets to inhale when he pauses in song. He notes the high, almost sharp cheekbones and the chiselled chin, alabaster white skin and obsidian black shimmering hair striking contrast over the person’s features. He notices the slight furrow between their eyebrows and the unhappy tilt to their lips. He notices the way their silky fringe is parted just to the right side of their forehead, two parts falling back down to brush against the smooth, pale planes of their skin. Eren’s eyes trail downwards, and he notices an angular jawline, further down, a lithe, slender neck and an adam's apple, and down, protruding collarbones where they had left the top two buttons of their shirt undone.

Eren notices that, when he raises his gaze, the person is still looking at him. Curiosity sparks behind their mercury eyes like lightning behind a silver cloud, as a tug of the same sort of insatiable inquisition hooks Eren in the centre of his chest and pulls at his insides, like a fish being drawn out of water.

Not quite as sombre a feeling, Eren supposes. No.

Much more like flying. Being pulled up to the highest point in the sky only to be let go at zero gravity potential, hovering in perfect motionlessness for an eternal second before the wind begins racing past your ears and eyes and hair, falling faster than a shooting star can fly. Eren has never felt this way before. He had always thought that it was just in anything’s nature to dislike the sensation of falling. But falling here, now, in this place he loves, playing this music he loves over the ocean he loves while staring into the eyes of someone who he has never met, falling feels like liberation. Falling feels like all the answers in the entire world, like all he has ever worked for, every drop of sweat and blood he has shed, and every tear, suddenly worth it. Falling feels like the key to the gates that have kept Eren trapped in this place that he loves so fiercely and yet yearns to be away from so deeply. Eren is flying.

It is gone in a blink. Eren presses his fingertips onto the fretboard with a deep desperation to keep the agony there so that if he does open his mouth, it is to groan in pain instead of call out to that person, who is standing, and leaving.

Eren’s song has come to an end. The night sky drapes itself and all of its constellations back under the heavens. The mountains rise from the earth around this place once more, ocean pouring back in from far away and singing to him her melancholy song as Eren’s world comes crashing in all around him while he watches a slim figure walk back towards the shore. As if to taunt him, a warm breeze tickles the hair by the nape of his neck, but staring at that person’s retreating back he only feels like he is drowning.

 

 

***

 

 

Levi has had enough. He has had enough of being silenced, of being ignored. He has had enough of being treated as a child, as if he can only procure insignificant opinions and idealisms too immature to be considered by _adults_. Which is stupid, really. Levi is already eighteen years old. Kenny acts more immature than he ever has, what with how he turns every trivial little inconvenience into an argument, blowing things completely out of proportion and not knowing how to conduct himself in front of others. This was supposed to be a holiday for the crook to blow some of the money he had scammed off of some poor soul. He'd brought Levi along so he couldn't complain about being neglected, and of course, the girlfriend, too.

Levi had cringed behind a sigh as Kenny had informed him that they were going to have dinner at the harbour earlier that evening. Yet he had followed them, taking in the sights and smells, watching children dragging their parents towards ice cream vendors, people singing, enjoying good food, and better company. That man had been drunk since noon, and he is never pleasant to be around unless he has a woman wrapped around him one way or another. Levi hates that he is the one to have to witness it.

But he had followed, and honestly, when the two leading him had stepped onto a pier with neat rows of tables along one side, candles dancing daintily in the faint wind, a dreamlike voice floating along in the warm breeze and all but crooning to Levi though he did not understand a word of it, he had not been too miserable. His uncle had sneered at him to mind himself when Levi had mistakenly stepped in front of the man, but, honestly.

It really was all good and fine, because as a waiter with a perfectly practised smile leads them down the pier and farther away from solid ground, seats them at their table, Levi is shortly immersed by an unblinking green gaze. Levi stares for a minute, eyes trained sharply, mouth closed not in it’s usual pinched line but into the more neutral semi-pout of his natural lip shape as he admires the twinkling stones and stars in the green eyes of the tall, dark boy on the stool with a guitar snug in his lap, right across from where Levi is sitting.

The wind blows gently, and the boy’s shaggy brown hair tickles the tips of his ears and sweeps over his forehead a little, ripples the fabric of his simple green shirt flush against firm flesh of a ripped chest and stomach, accentuating a slim waist and broad shoulders.

“Levi.”

The boy’s eyes close, and he tilts his chin towards the night sky. The way his long, muscled neck becomes bared to Levi makes him swallow thickly, eyelids lowering, not quite squinting.

_“Levi.”_

“What?”

“Choose something to eat.”

Levi pauses and looks down at the table, not really thinking much about food. He flips open his menu and ignores the shiver that tremors up his spine as the honeyed voice floating on the salty sea breeze does something truly wicked, and scans his eyes dully over the smattering of words and images on the laminated paper before him. For appearances sake, he tells himself as he blindly flips the pages, not even hungry.

Levi decides that he’ll make do with starters and a roll from the little breadbasket in the centre of the table, and forces himself to not look at that boy lest he get completely entranced again and look like a fool in front of Kenny. The plan of action works fine for the most part. He entertains himself by watching those around him. A small black and white cat weaves between chair legs and table legs, human legs alike, pausing every now and then and staring dolefully up at whoever glances down at the wrong moment. Levi picks bits of bread from the roll he doesn’t truly find very appetising and flicks them into the shallow water below him, watching in mild interest as fish positively swarm it. Levi throws some more bread down just to watch the fish become frenzied, and smiles minutely as a tiny girl at an adjacent table squeals in delight at the mass of writhing creatures below the molten gold-looking surface of the water.

The food comes, and it distracts him enough that when he feels something soft brush against his leg it makes him jump in his seat a little. He glances down and right into the open yellow gaze of the little black cat he’d seen nosing around earlier. His lips quirk as it sits by his seat and mews softly, small ears twitching this way and that, tail swishing languidly back and forth.

“Don’t touch it,” Angela pleads, and Levi huffs out a quiet scoff.

“I am going to touch it,” he says, an indirect ‘fuck you I can do what I want’, leaning down and allowing the little cat to sniff his fingers, small pink nose twitching slightly sweetly, before it purrs and rubs the top of its head over the backs of Levi’s fingers. He ignores the frustrated huff from the woman, the annoyed click of a tongue from Kenny.

Levi pets the cat for a short while before he notices that the two adults have started arguing about something that he could not care any less about if he tried. The cat can keep his mind from clinging to those words they spitefully throw at one another.

He slightly despairs when the small feline twining its agile body between his ankles trills in delight, before trotting away to where a rather large, bearded man who appears to be glowing with a sheen of sweat in the lightly humid weather had spilt some of his dinner onto the deck. Kenny's voice is raised now, and Levi glances about himself a little self-consciously. By chance (that is what he tells himself, anyway) his eyes find the face of the singing boy. Levi listens, like his life depends on it, and somehow it blocks out the worst of the sound of Angela desperately trying to apologise to Kenny, soothe his drunken rage. The man's voice sounds like dragging nails down a blackboard to Levi’s ears, but this boy’s earthy singing washes over it and drags it under as if his voice were the tides of the sea, constant rush of waves along the shore, always known, making every other sound around it dim, submit. His voice is gravelly but smooth all at the same time, like honey or rich chocolate fondue, like a silk ribbon curling and smoothing out in the wind, all dark tones and shade but shining so brightly before it dips low and sultry, like red wine, heady and warm. Levi is intoxicated.

It is only when the boy opens his own eyes that Levi realises that he’s staring again. He can’t tear his eyes away, anyway, couldn’t do it to save his life. The boy’s eyes are like the sea, blue-green tourmaline and dotted with flecks of gold and brown. They shine brightly in the orange flame light. They’re round and big and expressive, and Levi follows the flutter of his long, dark lashes to the strong bridge of his nose, hard jawline. Levi stares at his full lips as they form mesmerising shapes around incomprehensible words and entrancing melodies. He has thick, dark eyebrows, and his chestnut hair is shaggy and unkempt, a little long around his ears and the nape of his neck, coming to cover the bronze skin of his forehead and meet his eyebrows.

He closes his eyes then, and his fingers fly over the strings of his guitar and his music fills the air in soft and lilting tones, all melting together to form a string of perfect skips and trills that Levi feels in his stomach, in his heart as it’s beat becomes irregular, thumping uncomfortably in his chest.

The boy opens his eyes once more, and he stares back at Levi. Levi swallows, and he feels it almost physically as the boy’s electric stare travels over his face as Levi’s had just done, and then lower down his neck and over his chest. He is completely caught, like a fish on a line once more, when his own gunmetal eyes meet green ones for the nth time. He thinks, this should be getting old. Instead, he hears his blood rushing behind his ears and his heartbeat is so loud it feels as if his heart were between his ears. Levi feels wind rush around him, but he thinks nothing could stop him from holding that boy's stare. He feels like he’s catching a wave, going faster and faster, something like adrenaline buzzing through his veins before-

Kenny says a rude word, and Angela says a worse one back. They spit profanities at each other in a grating, frigid way.

Levi drops his eyes to the empty plate on the table in front of him, stares unseeingly at the crumbs scattered on the shiny ceramic surface. He refrains from saying a bad word himself, and instead gets up from his seat without thinking too much about what he is doing.

Levi doesn’t push his chair in or hear his Kenny's grunt of anger at his retreating back. He doesn’t see the waiter turn to stare at him, tray of the food he’d thoughtlessly ordered not long ago balanced in his one hand. Levi does notice the silence, the void in which that boy’s voice had filled and made beautiful. Now, it’s deafening, and Levi wants to get away from it. So he keeps walking, one step after another, back to the shore, and doesn’t look back.

 


	2. Stardust of A Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from 'Stardust' performed by Nat King Cole

 

Levi doesn’t particularly know this place well. He knows it’s tiny and probably impossible to get lost in, but he’s only been here a day. He knows that it’s probably better to stick to the shore and not go too far inland lest he  _really_  not be able to find his way back to the hotel. But instead of wondering right and to the busier night market, Levi turns left upon reaching solid land and walks aimlessly along the picturesque, dimly lit waterfront.

To call it a harbour is generous. It’s more of a cobblestone path built over a rustic wall stopping the sea from encroaching onto the houses facing the water, no more than three meters to his right. He frequently passes by small boats that are tied sporadically to clearly self-made mooring posts or rings. He’s walked past countless couples sitting on the wall facing the sea, curled into each other, staring up at the night sky. He supposes, it's romantic to look out across the sea to where the boats light up the inky ocean. To hear the faint echo of music and admire the flickering lights of the bay as it curves around enticingly, beckoning, telling of its festivities. Levi’s hands clench absentmindedly, and he puts them in his pockets. He feels a little out of place. A little like he's walking back in time.

Eventually, Levi comes across a tall, metal fence. It’s looming and ominous, completely alien within its surroundings. For some reason, what looks to be police tape or at least some kind of impersonator of it is zigzagging from one side of the gate to the other. Levi squints into the darkness to make out what lays beyond the gate, and can just make out an oblong shape jutting far into the sea, pitch black against the shimmering array of colours that ripple gently. It seems dangerous, but he doesn’t care.

Levi takes a step back. He looks left, then right, and walks a little further along as his curiosity piques. He comes across a tiny estuary, resembling a small and mostly dry stream opening up into the sea. He nimbly climbs down the steep, rocky bank in the mellow darkness, landing at the bottom in a muddy puddle. Scowling in disgust at the sensation of warm, grainy wetness, he picks carefully on. At least it’s shallow.

There are sandbanks all over, so Levi simply follows one down towards the sea, parallel to the bank. There’s a fence all along the top of the bank. To stop people from getting in, Levi supposes. He walks to the end of the sandbank until the sea washes up to his feet, a dead end. So he turns back, walks a little ways towards the cobbled path again, and about half way to the place where he had clambered down the bank he climbs up to the wooden fence.

The thing is falling apart, and he places a hand on it to gauge whether or not it could take his weight. When he shakes it a bit to test its stability, it jerks alarmingly. After a minute of contemplation, Levi firmly grasps the fence and jumps over easily. He lands half on a skewed brick and wobbles at the unexpected object suddenly under one foot and not the other, reaches out to grab at the fence again for support and winces as it creaks loudly, the sound garishly abrasive in the quiet of night. He glances around him, but as it had been before, there is no one to hear him. Levi sighs quietly to himself and gets his phone out, putting on his flashlight and picking his way around planks of wood and bricks and fallen branches, beer bottles and cigarette butts in the dark. He is careful when he gets to the pier, makes sure it isn’t rotting before stepping onto it and walking down to the end. It’s longer than it had seemed from behind the fence, sturdy and undamaged. He turns off his flashlight and slips his flip flops off, crouching down and plopping into a sitting position while letting his feet dangle into the water below.

The sea is surprisingly warm, and it feels pleasant and silky against his toes. From this distance the town looks bright and unassuming, fairy lights dancing along the water’s edge, jovial and pretty. Levi turns his head slowly, taking in all the sights. The glow of the town narrows and tapers off as it reaches further into the sea, and gives way to the more intermittent luminescence of boats scattered along the water just a short distance from where the mountains sink below the surface. It’s funny, Levi thinks. In a natural yet intriguing kind of way, that the things that people find completely obvious in the daytime are suddenly utterly gone at night. So very gone, that if you tried hard enough you could probably convince yourself that they were never there to begin with. Levi stares out at the lights, in all their shapes and forms and colours, far and near, bright and dim, high on the towering masts of the sail boats or almost glancing the water’s surface on the modest bows of little wooden fishing boats.

His eyes trail slowly upwards following the mast of a nearby sailboat, then, and his jaw slackens in awe. He wonders, breathless even in his own mind, why it has taken him until now to glance up at the sky. Because it is beautiful, here where there are not too many lights blinding him from the stars, he can see thousands of them. Bright, blinking entities, orange planets and hints of dusky glow and mesmerising whorls of galaxy. The moon is the slimmest sliver of a crescent hanging high above him, leaving the black canvas of space entirely lit and glowing by stars. His eyes catch onto something marvellous, and he blinks after barely blinking at all. Running from the left side of the entire sky all the way to the right, (or maybe vice versa, who could tell?) a rift of marbled milky way cuts through the star smattered sky. It’s like a wake, Levi imagines, a huge boat up in space soaring between stray asteroids and universes, stirring up beauty in the form of mystic effulgence instead of churned water and smoke.

Suddenly, a star flies high above him, leaving a trail of blazing light behind it. Levi's lips part and he's mesmerised, and he watches the same spot of crowded sky long after any traces of it have gone in the hopes of maybe seeing another shooting star. After staring hopefully for a few minutes, he remembers that he isn’t so lucky. He can't even feel bad about it.

Levi snorts to himself after a thought catches him off guard. He doesn’t know why he’s started thinking like a toddler all of a sudden now, because he's  _stargazing,_  but the simplicity is much appreciated in his usually tumultuous mind and so he doesn’t particularly care. He has no one to prove himself to, here, no one to hide himself from. He taps his nails lightly on the wood next to his thigh, eyes wide as he stares, stupefied in intrigue by sheer beauty. Allows himself pieces of the childhood he was never permitted by the world in these quiet, stolen moments of serene solitude.

After a second of contemplating to himself whether or not the deck is clean enough, Levi shrugs his shoulder minutely and sighs, laying flat on his back. He keeps one hand strewn over his stomach and the other cushioning the back of his head. From this position, the sky is stretched over him like a picture, or a dream, and his mind stays wonderfully absorbed in the glittering night.

He is so captivated that he somehow misses the sound of light footsteps approaching him from behind, and almost startles when a head appears suddenly in his line of vision. The shadow blocks the stars out, but the person's eyes glitter so brightly they might as well hold galaxies inside of them.

“Merhaba,” they say.  _He_  says.

Levi frowns and tilts his head slightly. He doesn’t speak this language. The boy hasn’t moved so Levi doesn’t either, staring up from flat on his back. The sensation of being exposed and defenceless floods him like icy water, but this boy’s voice is warm and soothing. It’s almost reassuring in a way, like the gentle hush of waves on the beach. Levi remembers candlelight and green, green eyes instead of the prickling discomfort of hateful words, and he is thankful.

Levi watches, fascinated as a slow smile spreads over the boy’s features. Levi hadn’t noticed when his eyes had adjusted to the darkness.

“You know, you shouldn’t really be here,” says the boy, smiling softly down like raining sunshine or shooting stars. Levi huffs, eyes the boy’s barely dimpled chin without realising himself.

“Neither should you,” Levi retorts. The boy’s accent is alluring. His words are smooth in some places, more staccato in others, and it’s exotic and comforting all at once. The boy laughs. It sounds like the universe, the stars and the sun, the moon and the sea all at once.

“Touché,” he snickers. Levi closes his eyes as the boy stands upright, and it feels like suicide. It feels like standing on the edge of the roof on a skyscraper with his back to a stranger, waiting to be shoved. But he does it anyway, and he doesn’t know why.

“Mind if I sit?” He asks, and Levi stares up at his enquiring expression for a second before wordlessly sitting up, hooking his fingers through the bands on his flip flops and placing them on his other side, lifting himself gracefully to one side of the pier.

The boy wordlessly sits next to Levi. Close, but not close enough that they are touching, not even nearly so. Levi kicks his feet in the water a little, watches as it ripples and splashes out. They are silent for a short period that feels longer than it is.

“You were watching me, at the restaurant. Weren’t you?” The boy asks suddenly, voice soft and fleeting like wind. Levi’s breath catches in his throat. He turns his head slowly and finds that the other boy is watching him intently, thinly veiled curiosity evident on his face. Hopefulness glints in his sparkling eyes. It could be a trick of the darkness. Levi doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything.

“Am I wrong?” He prompts, voice softer, uncertainty tainting its crooning crests and troughs. His eyes waver fractionally, but Levi sees, hears it. He’s not imagining anything. The way the beginnings of regret colours the boy’s voice makes him feel like cringing, so he outs himself. It’s strange, and Levi realises it feels too much like a confession

“No. Not wrong.” Levi pauses, swallows deeply and tries not to get sucked into those  _eyes, hell, those eyes._

Levi’s never seen anything quite like them. The orphanage used to take him and the other orphans on the occasional field trip to local museums. Levi’d had no choice but to go, despite the fact that he’d never enjoyed it. Geological museums had been the matron’s favourite. But even after seeing all the shining gemstones in those damned museums, Levi never thought he’d be so enraptured by blue-green tourmaline as he is right now.

The boy smiles, and it lights up his whole face. He seems a bit coy, and Levi wants to scowl at that but doubts that he can when the glow of this boy’s happiness is engulfing him with such earnest warmth.

“You have a nice voice, that’s all,” Levi mutters defensively, and the boy chuckles. He leans back on his hands and looks out to the sea, swinging his legs back and forth so that his feet stir up the water, and the small waves knock Levi’s feet into one another a little. Levi notices that the boy’s feet are submerged all the way up to his ankles, and his own only just past his toes. He would feel bitter about it, but in this moment he can’t seem to.

“Do you think so? Thank you,” the boy says, smiling to himself. He seems to smile a lot, and Levi catches himself mimicking a microscopic version of his expression unintentionally. There’s another lull of peaceful silence. The swells from the sea become a little bit stronger, a bit bigger. Waves hush against the wall behind them a harder, murmuring speechless song. Wind blows warm across their bare cheeks, and arms and knees. Levi looks back down at the water swirling around his feet. Takes a steadying breath.

“You looked at me, too.”

The boy looks up at Levi again, and he doesn’t know when he’d moved but he's already staring right back. Levi can't read the boy's expression. He seems curious. A smile spreads over his features once more.

“I did,” he says, and his face is some curious combination of cheeky and bashful. Levi’s body forgets how lungs work and how hearts beat, and he sits there, thinking that he’s probably going to die within the next couple of seconds. He stares up at the stars in betrayal and asks them when none of the thoughts in his head are making sense.

_Why?_

Unsurprisingly, when his lungs expand once more in inhale and his heart kick starts back to normality, he still doesn't understand.

“And then you left,” Eren says, and his smile dims a few watts. But his teeth come out, and it’s a strange sort of emptiness left there where it doesn’t belong.

“Did you follow me? Creep,” Levi jokes to erase the tenseness that has suddenly surrounded them.  _Jokes_ , and the boy sputters and denies the statement adamantly.

“I didn’t. I come here all the time, it’s my favourite place to be when I want to be away from-” he stops himself before he can finish the sentence, eyebrows furrowing slightly. Levi frowns.

“Do you want me to go?” Levi asks seriously.

The boy frowns, too, like he’s made a mistake. Like he’s worried.

“No. No, don’t leave. I didn’t mean I come here  _just_  to be alone. I come here with my friends, too. But when I’m really stressed or angry, I come here to cool off, you know?” He explains, and Levi nods in understanding, shoulders relaxing.

“It’s nice to talk to people who don’t know you,” the boy says, and Levi knows exactly how he means it. He nods again. The boy exhales deeply.

“This town is so small, you get to know every single person who lives here eventually,” he admits, and he sounds very fed up. Levi’s lip twitches at sight of the childish pout that has housed itself on his lips, and the boy catches it. Smiles back, and Levi suddenly feels awkward in his own skin and contemplates throwing himself off the pier. Coughs into his fist instead, and looks down at the black water below him.

“What’s your name?” The boy asks, and Levi doesn’t even hesitate.

 “Levi.”

_Why?_

“You seem quite, Levi.”

“Maybe you talk too much,” Levi replies without a moment's hesitation, and the boy laughs loudly. His laugh is freeing, makes Levi want to smile, the way it curls about him and fills his ears with such a pleasant sound.

“Maybe. My name is Eren. I’m not usually like this. And maybe what I actually meant was; 'you… seem to be a bit sharp tongued, Levi,’” he mimics himself, And Levi just decides he doesn’t feel like holding back around this boy anymore, and smiles like he hasn't in a very long time.

“Maybe.”

Eren laughs again.

“Where are you from, Levi?” Levi doesn’t know why Eren keeps saying his name, but he thinks he doesn’t really mind.

“I’m half Japanese, and half American. I live in New York.”

Eren’s bright eyes shimmer visibly in wonder. Levi thinks it’s like a damned cartoon. _This can’t be real. He can't be real, there's no way._

“Woah, that’s- I’ve never even left this country. I heard that people from New York are rude, but you seem pretty nice to me, Levi. Apart from, you know, the snide-ness,” Levi lets out a huff of amusement.

“You just have to meet the right ones, I guess. Why do you keep saying my name? There’s no one here but us,” Levi asks. Eren blanches and Levi tries, tries so hard but in the end can’t look away in his surprise as the other boy colours rather brilliantly.

“I’ve… never met anyone called Levi,” he admits lamely, and clearly knowing very well of his own tactlessness adds, with a suaveness Levi didn't know he possessed, “and, it sounds nice. I like how it feels when I say your name.”

And then it’s Levi’s turn to look down into his lap not knowing what to do with himself because  _who even fucking says that,_ and Eren’s expression becomes more joyous by the second as Levi begins to brood. He ducks his head to hide how flustered he must look, unused to such unabashed honesty.

“Did I make you shy?” Eren chuckles.

“I’m not shy,” Levi denies adamantly, and glares at Eren. The other boy doesn’t seem bothered at all and continues smiling happily. He looks _so_ pleased with himself.

“How old are you-?” Eren asks, and Levi hears the forced pause at the end of the sentence where Eren had stopped himself from saying Levi’s name again, and it’s bizarre in a way that makes him kind of want to laugh.

“What is this, twenty questions?”

Eren laughs again, so free and careless, and Levi can feel his cheeks starting to ache from how hard he is trying to keep his lips from separating in smile.

“I’m curious. Just a clueless island boy dreaming of learning about the outside world,” Eren sighs, somewhat jokingly. It seems as though Eren is capable of soldiering through Levi’s sharp-tongued defences and arctic stares.

“Fine," Levi relents, "but you answer, too.”

Eren nods, face set like he’s won something.

“I’m seventeen,” Eren says first. Levi regards him with surprise.

“No shit? You look older. I’m eighteen.”

Eren laughs, and carries talking through the melodious sound with a voice like melted chocolate or wine,indulgent and rich, moreish.

“You look younger, I thought I was going to be able to pull the ‘age before beauty’ card on you but that backfired,” He snorts, shaking his shaggy head in disappointed disbelief, and Levi sighs.

“Everyone says that. So fucking annoying,” Levi grunts.

He stops short.

“You suggesting that I’m beautiful?” He calls out to get a rise out of Eren, raising a judgemental eyebrow. As expected, Eren takes the bait immediately. He dry washes his face, and Levi watches him attempt to backpedal wryly.

“I was really hoping that you would just ignore that part-”

“Not a chance, man.”

“It’s an _expression_ , let me live.”

Levi snickers. Eren stares at him in total shock, for some reason. Totally miffed. Levi stares back, one eyebrow arched as he waits for some kind of explanation to the strange behaviour he has suddenly earned. 

“What?” He asks after waiting a little too long for Eren to stop gawking. He shakes his head like a puppy and Levi gets this electrifying feeling spread warmth over his shoulders and neck and chest. A shiver starting from within his chest and spreading outwards to his limbs, making his face heat up, strangely.

“You laughed, I think.”

“I knew you were fucking  _weird-_ ”

“I’m- well. Just normally… I don’t know." Eren shakes his head again. "Normally it doesn’t take me this long to make someone crack up. It surprised me is all, you…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, scratching behind his ear, glancing away. Levi is stuck on something he doesn’t understand for a second before he gains back his senses.

_Why?_

“You do this often, chatting up strangers?” Levi prods teasingly again, and Eren just sighs and pouts.

“I’m not chatting anyone up. I just like to… talk to people and- You are quite mean,” Eren sulks. Muscular, tall and adult-looking Eren. Sulking, like a child. Levi takes the opportunity with no sympathy.

“You look like a baby when you make that face.”

“You look like a baby anyway,” Eren shoots back, and Levi huffs.

“Fuck off, we can’t all be built like horses and have scruff before our balls drop,” Levi snarks.

Levi rolls his eyes at the delighted laughter the statement gains.

“Fuck  _you_ , you haven’t seen my balls!” Eren laughs.

“Yeah, let’s keep it that way,” Levi grumbles without any real bite.

The wind blows and takes with it their soft voices, carries the melodic conversation over the surface of the ocean and into the dark night. Twines it between the masts and ropes of the sail boats, underneath their steadily heaving bows, between the towering mountains and through the winding, dimly lit streets and past open windows and dark porches.

In return, the sea gives to them a sense of ease as it swells up over Levi’s ankles and sinks back down to his toes, sings softly as it meets with the land behind them in a low, hushing way. The air around them is less strange and unfamiliar. He wonders why it feels like he’s known Eren his whole life when it’s only been a few minutes.

“You have an interesting way of saying things. Do you always curse so much?” Eren says, eyes sparkling more and more. Levi doesn’t know how a person can have such startling features.

“I- so what if I do?”

“Nothing, so nothing. Do your parents let you swear in front of them?”

“My parents have never been a part of my life,” Levi says bluntly. Eren looks taken aback for a second, before he nods and looks down at his feet in the water, knocks on the wooden deck next to his thigh gently with a single knuckle.

“Me, too.”

They’re strangers, but Levi knows that despite this, they have an understanding between them that cannot change, cannot be reversed or erased. A wind calms a little over the surface of a metaphorical lake, reflections becoming slightly clearer in its glassy face.

There’s silence, for a short while. Levi thinks about breaking it a few times, maybe apologising for bringing it up when he could have worded his answer differently, but he thinks Eren is going to anyway. Not much later, he does.

“Levi, why did you come here on your own?”

“Should I have invited someone?” Levi snips automatically, and wishes he could suck the words back into his lungs from the void. He doesn’t know if the wince he feels is really showing on his face, but he somewhat hopes it is.

Eren pauses. Looks to Levi, face not telling of anything. Levi licks his lips and stares back out at the inky sea full of stars, with stars of a different kind burned into the backs of his eyelids.

“I’m sorry. I’m not good with words. Sometimes I’m very blunt, and harsh and kind of rude. I can’t help it, but I don’t mean half of it,” Levi explains. He tilts his chin downwards and persists in not looking up, avoiding eye contact with Eren at all costs.

Eren laughs very softly and says, “It’s all right. You’re from New York, after all,” and Levi smiles at that, too.

“You don’t need to apologise,” Eren snickers, “you should hear what I get from my sister.”

Levi nods, for lack of anything better to do. There’s another short bout of quietness.

“I needed to get away,” He says. He doesn’t know why it came out of his mouth, but he feels better that it did.

He fights through discomfort, feet kicking a little harder at the surface of the water. He focuses on the feeling of the water resisting the harder he kicks, watching the droplets flick far away from where he’s sat.

“I needed a distraction,” he sighs as he puts his hands between his thighs, hunching his shoulders and rubbing his cheek against one of them. The fabric of his shirt softly catches on his skin, not quite itchy, not truly comfortable.

They’re both quiet. Lost in their own thoughts, both having reminded themselves as to why they would come here, so far away from all the lights and the music. But Levi supposes it’s okay. He had come here to be angry and vent his frustration alone, and instead another possibly angry person had stumbled across him and together they’d managed to make some happy medium of just about fine. Levi  _still_  doesn’t know why, but he feels like he’s known Eren for a long time. Levi feels as if he doesn’t have to try when it’s Eren, like he does with everyone else. He chalks it up to the dark night obscuring the parts of him he'd have otherwise been concerned about hiding.

When he thinks about it, it’s too strange to understand and he starts to lose himself in the way the ripples beneath his feet spread outwards and go on forever and ever. The way they disturb the still water. The way it doesn’t make sense for them to just keep going forever. _How do they keep going? Do they ever stop?_

He looks back at Eren over his shoulder. To his surprise, the younger boy is already watching him with half lidded eyes. Eren smiles when Levi’s eyes meet his. He looks relaxed, calm and satisfied. Like, Being here on the end of a shitty pier in the middle of the night with Levi is the only thing he wants and needs in this moment.

_Why?_

“Do you want go somewhere, Levi?” Eren says suddenly. Levi furrows his brow and cocks his head.

“What, so you can kidnap me?” He asks bluntly. He’s not even sure if he’s joking. In actuality he has only known Eren for less than an hour. He should not be following strangers to even stranger places to do unknown things. It’s difficult to remember that Eren is even younger that he is, and more so when he has eyes like precious stones and a smile like the sun even in the darkness of the night.

“Well, I wouldn't tell you if i were going to, would I?" Eren replies with an amused expression. Levi fixes him with the most deadpan, unimpressed stare he can muster, and Eren huffs.

"Come on, it’ll be really fun, I promise,” Eren encourages hopefully. Levi leans back as Eren watches him with a doleful expression.

“Sounds dodgy. Where are we going?”

Eren’s face breaks out into a grin, like he’s won. He has, and he knows Levi knows he has.

“You said you needed to get away. I was thinking, into the sea,” he says vaguely, mystic smile curling the corners of his mouth upwards.

“Into the sea.” Levi sounds discouragingly sceptical even to his own ears.

“Well. I have a boat, and the night to spend as I wish. You have unresolved emotioning to do-”

“Oi-”

“It will be  _fun,_  Levi. We don’t have to go far, but it helps me when I’m feeling like shit. You might enjoy it more than you think,” Eren tries, and Levi watches him with quickly dying stubbornness.

_Fucking- why._

Levi looks up at the sky for a second, and looks back down to Eren. The other boy is watching him expectantly.

“What? Let’s go,” Levi utters exasperatedly.

Eren swallows hard before he does his stupid blinding smile, and this time when Levi tries to look away he nearly falls into the water as he’s getting up from sitting. Eren laughs and Levi curses loudly, and they retreat from the shimmering lights of the sea with wind at their backs and the universe at their feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to keep the characters as similar as possible to who they are in canon 'verse, but a person's character and personality are heavily influenced by past experiences and how they were brought up, as much nurture as it is nature and all that. the things that these characters would have gone through in a war against massive man eating hell creatures are definitely gong to be different to the ones in this story, so there will be some 'ooc', or at least my interpretation of the characters personalities should they have been born in the world i've decided to put them in. 
> 
> come yell at me in the comments lol.

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is always welcome- or just tell me your thoughts. pester me to get a new chapter out sooner if u want one lol 
> 
> alsoo probs should mention the place i had in mind was Turkish coastline bcz Eren is kind of commonly associated with Turkey due to his name and maybe even his yummy golden skin lol.  
> (mostly like southish western coastline)


End file.
